This methodology combines historiographies of popular piety and spirituality. This thesis aims to trace categorisations of sacred objects in Dominican writing, seeing how the image was treated differently from relics, the idols of ‘pagans’, and the consecrated Eucharist. In writings for novices and laity, the friars discussed imagery at far greater length. Dominic’s habit of prayer before images of Christ crucified, and the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine shows several miracles involving images.

However, Dominican preaching and devotional writing discussed imagery at much greater length. This thesis argues that the traditionalist nature of Dominican scholarship made the friars reluctant to afford religious imagery a greater space than the Latin Church Fathers had allowed.

Despite an abundance of Byzantine patristic material discussing the veneration of images, Thomas Aquinas produced a very slight discourse on imagery in his Summa Theologiæ. The Dominican friars in northern France produced an extensive programme of theological writing, notable both for its erudition, and its all-encompassing treatment of varied theological topics. The discussion commences with the biblical foundations of the cult, then locates its emergence from the early Christian community, enunciates it as it was continued and cultivated by succeeding generations of Christians, and nally complements its understanding with the of cial proclamations of the teaching of ce of the Church. What the Scriptures and the Church Magisterium say about the cult of saints and what is the faith that people profess to believe when upholding this practice are just some of the questions that this article attempts to answer. In order to give proper explanation of the cult of saints, an inquiry about the development of its theology and the signi cance that it introduces to Catholic worship is discussed in this paper. People who are outside the Catholic tradition dismiss this religious custom because they are ignorant of the meaning and the truths that it communicates. The practice of the veneration of saints is integral in the understanding of the Catholic faith.

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